• Question: What is the oldest star you know of and how old is it?

    Asked by michaelwhu to Adam, Geoff, Rob, Sheila, Suzie on 22 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Suzie Sheehy

      Suzie Sheehy answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      I don’t know much about old stars – maybe ask one of the others??

    • Photo: Adam Tuff

      Adam Tuff answered on 21 Mar 2011:

      Last time I checked it was HE 1523 (catchy name) – it’s about 13.2 billion years old – so was around soon after the big bang (which was supposed to have occured 13.7 billion years old).

    • Photo: Sheila Kanani

      Sheila Kanani answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      Erm I think it is HE0107-5240 and scientists think it was created around the time of the Big Bang!

    • Photo: Robert Simpson

      Robert Simpson answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      The oldest stars in our galaxy are over 13 billion years old – the oldest one was discovered by the excellently named Very Large Telescope and is an ancient red giant. Very stars pose a bit of a problem because we don’t quite understand them fully. If we assume they formed in similar ways to current stars then they would be older than the universe – which means w]they must have formed or aged different. They are an interesting area of research.

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